A recent survey carried out by the Teacher Foundation in association with Wipro Applying Thought In Schools (WATIS) which was also reported in some dailies including Times of India, found that 42 per cent of elementary school students (Class 4 to 8) and 36 per cent of senior school students (Class 9 to 12) were being subjected to harassment by peers on school campuses.

The
study seems to implicate and suggest schools to focus on improving and
strengthening relationship management and life skill of self-awareness.

In
Focus

"However, such surveys bring the findings on psycho-social
environment of the schools to public domain but schools even don't access such
reports nor sit back to review their own institutional environment to work out
an action plan to improve things even the issue being raked up in the media.
The status quo continues and such survey reports become meaningless and gather
dusts in libraries," said social psychologist Anita Srivatava in Jaipur.

The schools of all hues have become either the places of neglect as
the case with government schools or feeling-less brutal business houses as is
the case of private schools. Consequently, there are also reports about more
school children being referred to psychiatrists for social, emotional, and
behavioural health disorders being bred by schools.

Many parents complain that they support healthy social and
emotional development in their children and raise issues of neglect of children
during the PTA meetings but to no effect. They grudge that social-emotional
insensitivities have becomes institutional habits and they find themselves
helpless as their stake in children's development and learning as been
sidelined.

In many countries wherein the mainstream private and public or
government schools have lost relevance, the ideas of un-schooling,
homeschooling and community-based education are being encouraged and explored
for better and sensitive education towards differentiated learning.

Such educational alternatives are based on learner-chosen
activities as the mainstay of learning. American educator, John Holt, is
regarded as the main proponent of un-schooling concept which 'questions the
usefulness of standard curricula, conventional grading methods, and other
features of traditional schooling in the education of each unique child'.

In many countries, by rejecting the institutional education
governed by hoisted management committees with vested interests, home schooling
is becoming a strong alternative for education of children with proper
pyscho-social environment and respect for diversity among learners.

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